


Rituals

by MadameReveuse



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Continuum Lore that I pulled out of my ass, Courtship, Feelings Realization, M/M, Q Antics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 03:32:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11592051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameReveuse/pseuds/MadameReveuse
Summary: Amanda Rogers comes to visit and brings some tantalizing new information on the Continuum. Suddenly Q's behavior makes a lot more sense, and Picard has to re-evaluate his feelings.





	Rituals

**Author's Note:**

> Whomst else wants this piping hot Content fresh out of the oven!??
> 
> No smut in this one, sorry... I promise the next one will be pure PWP. Tbh this here fic is mainly a dumping ground for some of my Continuum headcanons. But there's also an awkward dinner date and Picard turning the tables and toying with Q for once, in a very mild Picard way. I hope you'll enjoy it, and that you'll leave a comment if you did!! 
> 
> I'm also on tumblr (@andsamadams) and yall can hmu there!!

“Captain, may I talk to you in private?”

Usually when Deanna asked this question, she either wanted the privacy in order to discuss Picard’s own mental health or to point out a problem with another crewmember that didn’t need to be aired in public. But Picard was feeling perfectly fine, and he wasn’t aware of any conflicts on board, so it was with slight concern that he led the counselor into the ready room.

Deanna got right to the point. “Captain,” she began, “just a moment ago I sensed a strange… presence on the ship. One that hadn’t been there before.”

“Strange in what way?” Picard asked.

Deanna shrugged and gestured a bit helplessly. “I’m not sure how to describe it… it wasn't like any kind of life form I ever sensed before. It was just… strange.”

“Is It still aboard?”

“It is, Captain.”

“So we have an intruder,” Picard said grimly.

“Don’t go on alert just yet,” Deanna said. “I didn’t want to startle the others – or the life form. You see, I sense no hostility from it, whatever it is… I feel happiness… and joy.”

Picard furrowed his brows.  Deanna’s intuition in these things was usually trustworthy, but the happiness and joy of an unknown alien intruder did not necessarily have to be good for the ship.

“Can you localize the source of these emotions?”

Deanna closed her eyes for a moment. “It seems to be localized in… sickbay. Or near there.”

Picard nodded. It wouldn’t be the first time something odd materialized in their sickbay.

He tapped his commbadge. “Picard to Crusher.”

“Crusher here,” Beverly responded.

“Beverly, have you noticed anything… strange around sickbay lately?”

“Oh—hold on a second—” The comm went silent. Picard was relieved that at least Beverly hadn’t sounded distressed – in fact she had almost been laughing.

The commbadge beeped. “Crusher to Picard… Jean-Luc, I think it would be best if you came down here for a minute.”

 

* * *

 

When he and Deanna entered sickbay they found not some unexplainable alien intruder but a young blonde woman talking and laughing arm in arm with Beverly. She wasn’t, strictly speaking, human, but she was also not a stranger – they had met her once before and she had promised to come visit – this was the first time she did so. She was perhaps the only Q Jean-Luc was ever happy to see.

“Miss Rogers,” he said, and couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “We were just about to issue an intruder alert.”

“Oh, Captain!” Amanda spun around towards him, still grinning. “I probably should have announced myself. I’m not as good at blocking you out as Q is – Counselor Troi must’ve sensed me.” She and Deanna exchanged a hug.

“If it’s any consolation to you, I can usually sense Q as well,” Deanna told her. “Not his emotions, of course, but his presence.”

“I’m sorry if I startled anyone,” Amanda said.

“No harm was done,” Picard said. “So, what brings you here?”

Amanda probably saw that he was a little apprehensive – she was a nice girl, but she was also Q, and Q usually brought trouble.

“Nothing official,” she said. “I just wanted to visit Dr. Crusher. I was in the sector and I _had_ promised to drop by and… well, to be honest, there was something I wanted to discuss with someone outside the Continuum.”

Picard raised his brows. “And that something is…?”

“Girl talk. Nothing more. Oh come on, Captain Picard, don’t look at me as if the world’s ending. I promise you, this is completely harmless.” Her comparatively short stay in the Continuum had already changed Amanda, Jean-Luc noted. When she had first come aboard the Enterprise, Amanda had been shy, demure, a confused girl trying to find her place in the universe. Now she seemed more mature, self-assured and energetic, ribbing everyone as if they were old friends. Little shyness remained. It was a far cry from Q’s weird blend of patronizing smugness and exuberance, but a change nonetheless. Had she even started copying Q’s speech patterns?

“The thing is,” she said now, “Q wants to join with me, and I couldn’t bear telling any of the others yet – the Continuum are terrible gossips, the lot of them. And Doctor Crusher’s one of the few non-Q I know, and this is not really the sort of thing I wanted to discuss with my adoptive parents…”

“Join with you?” Beverly asked. “What does that mean?”

“Well, it’s like… when two Q love each other very much…”

“Oh. _That_ sort of thing.”

“We’d basically be joining our entire minds together. I mean, we’re all telepathically linked to each other in the Continuum, but a joining is more personal. More special. Yes, it’s like making love, but it’s more than that. It can also be the start of a romantic relationship. It can be a tiny bit like a marriage.”

For some reason, at that news, Jean-Luc felt his mechanical heart lurch. He hoped there wasn’t a malfunction there. “And _Q_ wants to do that with you?”

“What?” Amanda looked puzzled for a second. Then she laughed. “Oh, no. Ew. That would be like dating your dad! I forgot that you can’t distinguish between us like that. I meant _Q_. That’s someone else entirely.”

“Ah, well then. I admit, you and Q… was an odd mental picture to have.”

Picard did his best to avoid the weird side-eye he was suddenly getting from Deanna.

“Well, how do you feel about this joining?” Deanna then asked Amanda, in her most understanding counselor voice.

“Are you sensing my confusion? Gosh, Q’s right. I still have a lot to learn.”

“So you’re confused,” Deanna prompted.

“I’m afraid so. I mean, I’m happy! Q is a great person. And xe really made an effort for me. Xir puzzles were really hard to crack sometimes. But I never joined before! And I don’t know if I’m ready.”

“If Q really cares for you, xe’ll wait,” Beverly said, putting a hand on Amanda’s shoulder. “After all, you two have eternity.”

“But now I’m curious,” Deanna threw in. “What was that about puzzles? Is it another Q thing?”

“Ah yes, you wouldn’t know about that. It’s something a Q does to, well, I guess to woo another Q. They make all sorts of games and challenges for their intended… sometimes they create entire worlds or parallel dimensions just for it.”

Picard would have laughed if he hadn’t been so incredulous. “They let their potential _lovers_ jump through hoops for their amusement? And here I thought not even the Q could be so—”

Amanda’s eyes went wide and round. She looked almost a bit shocked. “Oh no, Captain, it’s not like that at all. You see, when a Q gets… interested in another Q, they start giving all kinds of courting gifts. Since the thing most Q want is a distraction from all that boredom they’re always suffering from, the gifts usually take the form of challenges and games for the intended. A Q who’s courting someone is supposed to learn about the other Q, their interests, their skills, the way their mind works. So the challenges are hard but tailored to the intended. They’re likely to be engaging and stimulating to them and to make them look good when they win. The Q who made up the game can help, sometimes, making it a couple activity. Like a date.”

“And that works?” Picard asked.

“Most of the time,” Amanda replied. “It can happen that a Q miscalculates and makes their challenge dull, uninteresting or worse yet, too hard. When the intended can’t solve the puzzle or win the game, that puts both of them in an embarrassing situation. Sometimes, when there’s already a bond there between them, the intended… just kind of quietly forgives the suitor. But not always. I mean, of course you can also give normal gifts. But that’s more like… a way for the suitor to show how well he knows and cares about the intended. Let’s say the intended is especially interested in a certain period of history. The suitor could invite them on a trip there, to show they’re willing to immerse themself in the intended’s hobby. Things like that.”

“I still find it an odd practice,” Picard mused, “to challenge a potential lover.”

“It’s more than that,” Amanda explained. “It’s also an opportunity for the suitor to… show off. Impress the intended with how powerful and creative and talented they are. The more elaborate and beautiful the puzzle is, the better. One time Q designed an entire pocket solar system just for me, with absolutely breathtaking planets. It was all so intricate, so detailed… it was really… well, it sounds cheesy but it was really made with love. I was flattered that xe’d invested so much time and care into making this for me.”

“Ah, I see,” said Beverly. To his astonishment, Picard noticed that she and Deanna had suddenly put on their poker faces. “Is it common to, say, present your intended with some kind of anomaly…?”

“Anomalies? Oh, it’s pretty common to create those for your intended. It’s practically Q art. When someone comes up with some brand-new anomaly that’s never been encountered before… well, that’s a bit risqué, but sure to impress. Shows the intended that you trust them in the face of the completely unexpected.”

“How many of those courting gifts will we… are common to give before you… well, how do you proceed from there?”

“Ah, there’s the tricky thing,” Amanda said. “These gifts are usually just presented out of the blue, without any kind of reason given. The intended has to _figure out_ that they’re being courted. Most Q, who are used to this whole ritual, figure it out pretty quickly – it took me a while, though. I’d never seen this before! Poor Q must’ve thought I was torturing xem.”

She took a deep breath and continued. “When the intended catches on, the ball’s in their court. They can either reject or accept the suitor, or tell them they require more proof of their affection or time to think about it… or they can turn things around and start challenging the suitor.”

Beverly turned to look at Deanna. They both nodded.

“Is it common for those… challenges to put the intended in real danger?” Deanna asked. “Or… something that’s valuable to them?”

“Or just the neighboring bit of universe?” Beverly added.

Amanda nodded, suddenly serious. “Unfortunately, yes. Many Q feel that otherwise it would be boring. But if there’s something of real importance on the line, and the intended is in over their head, the suitor – or, in extreme cases, the Continuum – would intervene.”

The three women looked at each other, as if locked in some silent communication of… something. Picard felt weirdly left out.

 

* * *

 

For some reason, even hours later, he couldn’t stop thinking about that conversation. He pondered it throughout the rest of his shift on the bridge. He went over it again alone in his quarters. He supposed, as he got into bed after another long day of being the Captain, that every revelation as to how the Q functioned was a large boon to the ship, the Federation and humanity, no matter how trivial the information seemed. He’d gotten a glance into the mindset of a Q, which was invaluable knowledge to have what with how closely the Continuum guarded its secrets, even though Picard personally would probably never have to deal with being courted by one…

It was probably much the same anyway. From what Amanda had told him, the tests and games and “gifts” Q had bestowed upon them in the past were remarkably similar to the courting ritual…

Picard chuckled about that as he began to feel sleep closing in on his consciousness… what a thought that was, Q courting humanity… courting him…

He sat up abruptly, wide awake. Could it be – was it possible – was the whole back-and-forth with Q truly some great cultural misunderstanding? Had Q really been trying to…?

_No_ , he told himself sternly. _Ridiculous. Preposterous. Snap out of it, Jean-Luc._

But when he thought back to all the Q encounters in the past… when they had met, Q had basically been yelling at humanity to get off his cosmic lawn. Then that horrid courtroom. He had talked Q into letting them prove themselves, and they had passed the test, and Q had been… grudgingly impressed, maybe.

Then there had been that bizarre incident with Riker, and then… oh boy, their forced incursion into Borg space. Q had rules-lawyered their deal in order to abduct him onto a shuttlecraft for hours of banter and the usual Q-groping. That entity had no sense of personal space…

Or perhaps that was only pertaining to people he found interesting. He certainly wasn’t that grabby with everyone on the Enterprise…

Well, eventually Q had brought Jean-Luc back to the ship and had then asked to join the crew, which was beyond strange in its own right. Saying that this was the place he really longed to be. That he wanted to help and guide them. That he would forsake his powers if necessary. They had argued and then they’d been supplanted into the delta quadrant. And _then_ the Borg cube.

Jean-Luc still had mixed feelings about his first confrontation with the Borg and the results of it. Too much to untangle here. Moving on!

That time when Q had been powerless for a spell. This was another one of the more troubling Q memories. Q had, for all intents and purposes, been the same old pest, but it was his own conduct that troubled Picard. _Of course_ he had been prudent to be distrustful of Q. And yet… there were Starfleet-regulated codes of conduct for situations like this, when an alien entity, helpless and friendless, requested asylum on a Federation vessel. Starfleet regulations did not call for the captain and crew of said vessel to bully the alien to the point of driving it into suicide, even if said alien wasn’t entirely trustworthy. From an outside view, it would have been hard to explain how Q’s case was different and warranted the bullying.

But Q had won his powers back, forced his obnoxious gifts on them as per usual (although Data still remembered the experience fondly, as Picard knew), fixed their moon problem and gone his merry ways. He had come back months later talking about having a debt to pay off…

And this was where things didn’t add up. Because there was no debt. Q had fixed the moon. He had given Data the gift of laughter. All had been repaid, had it not? If ever there had been anything to repay. It wasn’t like Picard had done much to save Q’s life.

What had commenced was… that entire event in Sherwood Forest. It had resulted in Q going off with Vash, and for the following year or so, there had been a general scarcity of Q around the Enterprise. What _had_ the two of them gotten up to? Picard felt a sting in his chest at the thought that he couldn’t really explain. He thought he had gotten over Vash a good long while ago. He tried to imagine Vash with another man, one who was not Q… just some random male. In his imagination, he gave the mystery man an imposing, muscular physique and… blond hair, perhaps. He tried to picture Vash on the arm of such a man, going on adventures with him. The sting did not return. He then inserted Q back into the scenario. His stomach contracted uncomfortably. Well, _there_ was something…

Q had, of course, come back around eventually, but this time obviously on Continuum business. It had been markedly different from any other Q encounter. Q had been… serious, indulging in none of his usual parlor tricks, not trying at all to impress… him. This visit hadn’t been about Picard, it had been about Amanda, and it had showed.

And then there were their last two meetings.

Those last two meetings…

Picard grabbed his commbadge off the nightstand.

“Picard to Crusher.”

“Crusher here,” said a somewhat sleepy voice on the other end.

“I’m sorry to disturb you at so late an hour, Beverly, but say, is Amanda still here?”

“Yes, she is,” Beverly said. “She’s in her old quarters.”

“Somehow I thought she might be,” Jean-Luc muttered, getting out of bed and grabbing a fresh uniform.

 

* * *

 

Amanda welcomed him in as if she had been waiting for him.

“That’s because I _have_ been waiting for you,” she said with a smile.

“I know it’s late—”

“No problem. The Q are like Pinkerton’s in that respect – we don’t sleep.”

Picard stepped into the room, looking around as if there was anything more interesting than bare, impersonal guest quarters to look at. “Your… _paramour_ ,” he said. “That whole story you told us. Is it true?”

“Oh, yes. Q is a very real person. And I did want to chat with someone about xir proposal. But I may have slightly exaggerated how much I needed Dr. Crusher’s motherly guidance.” She shrugged, smiling apologetically. “I thought if I get to be so happy…”

“…so should I?” Picard guessed.

“So should _he_. Q has done a great deal for me since I joined the Continuum. He’s rather full of himself, but he’s not a bad mentor. And we all hate to see him moping, constantly moping, just because of a misunderstanding.”

“What makes you think that I’m in a position to… make him happy?”

Amanda crossed her arms. “Look, to be frank, the Continuum at large feels that after seven years of all this, bringing things to a conclusion will be enough. One way or the other. Reject him, if you wish, or don’t… that’s really none of our business. Just… let’s all go on with our lives.”

 

* * *

 

Picard reported for alpha shift sleep-deprived and somewhat disgruntled. It seemed that word had gotten around about his predicament – not only did Beverly and Deanna separately approach him to carefully, tactfully voice their suspicions that he might be Q’s intended, Deanna also hinted at a lot of hot new gossip springing up among the senior officers. Apparently, Data opined that this explained a lot of Q’s formerly cryptic behavior, Worf maintained that Q had acted dishonorably but what else was new, Geordi remained ambivalent and was more preoccupied with the latest kink in the warp coil anyway, and Riker claimed that he had always “called it”.

Picard hid out in his ready room while an otherwise uneventful day commenced on the bridge. They were in between missions, on their way to the beta quadrant to pick up some Vulcan diplomats and escort them to a conference. The progress of their journey there didn’t warrant the Captain’s constant attention. And he needed to sit back and re-evaluate his feelings.

And then he needed a course of action.

By the end of alpha shift, he had a plan.

He entered his quarters filled with determination.

His space was always kept tidy, but now he tidied it some more. Should he get into his civvies? Yes, he decided. This was not a uniform occasion. Music? No. Way too tacky. He contented himself with dimming the lights a little. At last he set the dinner table and replicated some of his favorite dishes from his native France. A bottle of Robert’s vintage as a final flourish? Yes, why not. He was preparing to wine and dine a god, after all. He might as well go all out.

When all preparations were finished, he stepped back and cleared his throat. He had to try this. And, well, if it didn’t work, no one but himself would ever know.

“Q,” he said in a clear and steady voice, “if you are out there, if you can hear me… I’d like to see you.”

For one breathless moment, there was silence. Picard’s stomach dropped. Of course nothing would happen. Now he stood here looking stupid. He wanted to tell himself that no one was witnessing this but you could never quite be certain, with Q. Maybe he was somewhere laughing at him, little mortal in his hubris, trying to call to heel a supreme—

“Good evening, Jean-Luc. It seems you have requested the services of the Q Continuum. What can we do for you today?”

And there was Q, just like that, looking like he always did. “Well?” he prompted when Jean-Luc didn’t answer immediately.

“Q,” Picard said, looking straight at the entity, “I found you out.”

Q’s eyes narrowed for a second, then he sighed. “The child was here.”

“Amanda? Yes, she was here.”

“Poking her pretty nose into things that are not her business, it seems.”

“I found what she told me… enlightening.”

Fabric rustled as Q shifted his weight a little. Silence filled the room again. Picard could hear himself breathing. It was a striking difference from their usual, with Q practically bouncing off the walls and talking, always talking.

“Well?” Q repeated at last. “It took you long enough. Now my intentions are bared. I await the verdict.”

The verdict! There it was. Picard almost laughed. Perhaps this was why Q had hesitated to appear. Their roles were suddenly reversed, Picard the judge that Q had always styled himself as. He had the power to embrace this being of almost infinite might, or to send him on his way.

“The verdict?” he said. “The verdict is that you’re ridiculous, Q. How could you possibly have expected me to guess your true intentions? Why would you court a human the way you’d court a Q and expect it to work out?”

Q flinched at being dubbed ridiculous, his mouth tugging down into a dismayed frown. “So that’s what I get for seven years, to say it in your mortal way, of trying – your mockery. There I go and invest my time and care into trying to win the fancy of a glorified ape in uniform, a mote of dust under my metaphorical heel, and that’s how I’m received—”

“I’m not in uniform right now,” Picard said calmly.

“True enough. You’re wearing a monstrosity in beige with an unflattering cut that makes you look easily ten years older than you are. Some sort of recycled flour sack, perhaps?”

Picard heroically resisted the impulse to roll his eyes. He was familiar enough with Q’s moods to recognize this for what it was – the entity was lashing out to hide that he was hurt.

“Q, please. There is no need for any of that. I’m not mocking you, or rejecting you. I’m just asking you… why? Why this way?”

Q shifted again. It was almost a squirm. “Why not? Why anything? What else would I have done?”

“Well, you see, humans go about this a little differently,” Picard said, indicating the dinner table. “Why don’t we discuss this sitting down?”

“It’s much the same to me,” Q sniffed. “Why did you contact me _now?_ Your food’s getting cold.”

“I’d very much like it if you joined me.”

Q raised an eyebrow. “You know quite well I don’t eat.”

“Don’t or can’t?”

“I can alright,” Q said, not moving from his spot. “But why would I?”

“I don’t expect you to eat,” Picard said. “Not if it’s repulsive to you. You can watch me. But… well, it’s considered companionable, to humans…”

Q eyed the table, something like shock flitting across his mobile features. “This is _romantic_ ,” he accused. “There’s a flower on the table, and there’s wine, and the lighting…”

“That’s the intent,” Picard admitted with a wry smile. “This is how humans usually date, you see.”

“That’s so simple,” Q said, not quite mustering up his usual disdain. He seemed, for lack of a better word, too dazed for it. He came over to the table as if in a dream.

_You’re not in control here_ , Picard thought. _You don’t know all the rules to this game. You’re having to guess, and it_ bothers _you._

Q sat, somewhat reluctantly. “What does it mean?” he asked.

“What do you want it to mean?” Oh, Picard was _enjoying_ this. It was fun to take the old charm off the shelf and dust it off a little, especially in the face of so tantalizingly unpredictable a date. Q thought he knew him like this, because of the glance they’d taken into young Johnny’s youthful exploits, but Picard intended to show the entity that he really hadn’t seen nothing yet.

For now, he filled his plate and started eating.

Q stared at him in silence for a moment, an obsidian scrutiny. It looked like he wouldn’t choose to partake in the meal but then, abruptly, he copied Picard’s action, as if taking up a challenge. Picard observed the somewhat wary expression with which he brought his fork to his mouth. He chewed and swallowed like a scientist conducting an experiment, poised for disgust, then almost grudging to admit that the experience was not disgusting at all. “This is… not half bad, actually.”

Picard smiled a smile from his youth, the kind he’d aimed at people in bars during his academy years. “Wine?” he offered. “It’s my brother’s label.”

Q raised an eyebrow yet again. “If you’re trying to ply me, you’ll find it quite impossible.”

_He thinks he’s gotten a hint_ , Picard thought. _He’s still fumbling for clues on what this is about, the poor dear._ It was amusing to think of Q like that. He was having a ball. Good lord, maybe Q experienced the universe like this _all the time…_

“Getting people drunk is not my style,” he said dryly, not betraying in the slightest what he was feeling. “Where I come from, having wine with dinner is quite common.”

Q nodded and allowed Picard to pour him a glass. His reaction to the wine was even more guarded than his reaction to the food had been.

For a few minutes, the only sound in the room was the clink of cutlery. Picard kept his eyes on his plate, but he could feel Q’s eyes on him. He didn’t have counselor Troi’s empathic abilities, but even so he sensed the tension from across the table, radiating from the entity. As fun as this little game was, it was time to get down to business. If he kept up the inscrutable act for much longer, Q would probably implode.

“So,” he said, taking a miniscule sip of wine. “I’m pretty certain that the temporal anomaly, my trip to the past and the Sherwood Forest event were all attempts at wooing me. As for the rest, I’m not quite sure.”

“Look, I never lied to you,” Q said somewhat hurriedly. “What I told you about the Continuum is true. There _is_ a trial. When we met at Farpoint, getting you to go home was really all I initially wanted. But you were… different than expected.”

Picard nodded his head in a sort of thanks. “So then you…?”

“I wanted to find out more about you. Looking back, that assignment to tempt Riker was a bit dumb, but it was a first step. The Continuum… we… I didn’t understand humans then, at all. It was just a matter of throwing you a bone and seeing what would happen. Your response… intrigued me, again. It stopped being an experiment, then. I kept wanting to find other ways to incite a reaction in you, to draw you out, to challenge you, to fascinate—”

“But the Borg, Q?” Picard said softly.

Q shrugged. “I wish I could tell you that it was a mistake. That my temper got away with me and that I didn’t intend it. But look, the Borg were already snatching up your outposts along the Neutral Zone, and you were completely oblivious as to what was happening. Someone had to warn you, as you in your unparalleled arrogance weren’t looking into it properly. And well, you were assigned to me. The Continuum didn’t make me responsible for you bunch only for me to sit there twiddling my thumbs as your doom approached. Obviously in your hubris you were so sure that nothing—”

“I understand,” Picard said. He put his fork down. “Did you intend Locutus?”

“No,” Q said. “I did not, and that’s the truth. It was… one of several possible outcomes the Continuum divined. I hoped it wouldn’t happen that way, and when it did… I was going to circumvent Continuum law to alter things, but they ruled not to let me. Q and Q had to grab me and hold me in place until Riker had rescued you. _This is about more than your pointless infatuation with that mortal_ … they said.”

Picard couldn’t help it. Even though the topic was grave… he had to smile at Q’s high-pitched, fussy imitation of his fellow Q. He had never really considered humor a very important trait in a potential partner, but now… he wondered if keeping someone with a sense of humor around wouldn’t do him some good. To find something to laugh about even in the darkest of times…

Q cleared his throat, suddenly serious again. “If it’s not too much to ask… I know the whole Locutus issue will never really go away for you, will it, and I could have done something… they would’ve punished me, it would’ve messed up the timeline… but I _could_ have done something. And, well, what with everything that led to everything I understand if you…”

Picard raised a hand. “Never mind all that,” he said. “I’ve tried to make my peace with it. And I never for a moment expected you to swoop in and save me. I don’t begrudge you your role in the events.”

Q said nothing, but he visibly deflated. He reached for his glass, taking another sip of wine and trying, as Picard noted with a private smirk, valiantly not to wince.

“Not your thing?” he asked. “It’s alright, you know. Not everyone appreciates wine.”

“It’s fermented grape juice,” Q said dourly. “I don’t understand it.”

“It takes a mature palate to truly grasp the appeal of a good vintage,” Picard lectured, sipping at his glass.

“Are you accusing me of having childish taste buds?”

Picard allowed himself a laugh. “And what if I was?”

The gravity that had dominated the conversation only moments ago had fled the scene, which Jean-Luc was entirely grateful for. He didn’t want to sit here and discuss his darkest moments with Q. They’d have to do that at some point in time, but really, not tonight. Tonight his objective was another.

Carefully, he edged his foot forward and let it brush against Q’s ankle under the table. Q only moved his foot away and gave Picard a mildly irritated glance.

“Would you mind terribly staying on your side?”

Picard grinned. How backwards this entity had it – crowding into everyone’s personal space all the time, but not bearing to have the tables turned on him.

“You really haven’t done this before, huh?” Picard grinned.

“Done what before?”

“Played footsie under the table.”

“ _Footsie?_ ” Q repeated it as if it was an exotic perversion.

“Nevermind.”

For dessert there was the most sumptuous chocolate mousse the replicator could produce. It wasn’t anywhere near what Jean-Luc’s maman would have whipped up, but it was nice enough. He ate slowly, wanting to savor it, watching as Q hesitantly tried the tiniest spoonful of chocolate, the tip of his tongue darting out to lick the spoon. Picard had to suppress a laugh as Q’s eyes widened and he fell to eating with obvious enthusiasm.

_Chocolate,_ he thought. _They always get the alien with chocolate._ But the French had mastered the art of creating many other confections just as alluring, and for a moment, Jean-Luc imagined introducing Q to all of them just to see that look of near-rapture in the entity’s eyes again. _What am I thinking? Merde, I really am in deep._

Q was scraping the last dregs of chocolate out of his bowl before Jean-Luc was even halfway finished. “Maybe I judged humanity too soon,” Q said, scrupulously licking his spoon clean. “This is quite pleasurable. I can see why you wouldn’t want to transcend past this. Are you still eating yours?”

Another idea bloomed. Picard leaned forward, raised his spoon and brought it to Q’s lips.

Q’s stare was pure indignation. “Another one of your human customs?” he asked.

Picard grinned. “Just eat.”

For a second it looked like Q would. Then he batted Jean-Luc’s hand aside and stood. “I should go.”

Picard reflected that this was the first time he had ever heard Q offer to see himself out. “What, so soon?” he asked.

“I had dinner with you and we talked, as you requested. Now that we’re finished here, there are about a thousand places I could be going where there’s something of real interest happening right now. And I can imagine a myriad of ways in which I could have more fun than—”

“Q,” Picard interrupted softly. “Have you forgotten the initial purpose of your visit?”

“Purpose? What purpose? _You_ called me here.” He’d almost snapped it. _Got you now_ , Picard thought.

“I don’t know if I’ve given offense in some way…” he demurred, giving his voice an overly regretful tinge.

“Offense! Well, it is at least highly unusual and… you’ve got some _nerve_ calling me here and springing your little human ritual on me with no prior explanation!”

“Yes, exactly!”

Picard was treated to a rare sight: a puzzled Q. He only had about a second to enjoy it, as Q quickly grasped his meaning. He now looked almost sheepish as a hand came up to scratch the back of his neck.

“Point taken, Picard,” he said at last.

Jean-Luc smiled at him, feeling absurdly proud, not of himself for getting Q to see his point, but of Q for conceding it. “Would you mind telling me now why you… did what you did in the way that you did it?”

Q sighed. “To be honest, in the Continuum we’re… rather set in our ways. There have been no attempts to court outsiders in hundreds of thousands of years. I must admit I had quite forgotten there were other ways of doing it than the way we’d always done it. Or that things were likely to be lost in translation. As ludicrous as that sounds, it just didn’t occur to me.”

Picard rose from his seat as well. “So now, after years of misadventures, we find ourselves here.”

“Indeed.” Q looked down, fidgeting with the sleeve of his fraudulent Starfleet uniform. “So now that you know what you wanted to know, will you permit me to leave? Or do you need me to go through an apology first?” He moved his head aside in an abrupt, jerky motion that was more birdlike than human, seemingly so as not to meet Picard’s eyes. “Fine then, I apologize for trying to love you. I probably shouldn’t have.”

Oh, no. This was going all wrong. Luckily Picard knew just how to fix it.

“Q, listen to me very closely now,” he said, and remembered the words Amanda had taught him before she had departed the previous night, the words which, in times of old, when the Q had still cared about formalities, had concluded the rite of courtship.

“These words are my own,” he began.

_(“They said this to signify that they weren’t making this statement under duress,” Amanda had explained. “And that they really were themselves, not, say, possessed, or another Q in disguise.”_

_“Did that really happen?” Picard had asked._

_“Apparently a few people tried it,” she’d replied. “It’s highly illegal these days, in the Continuum. But yeah, it did happen. My people are… kind of unscrupulous about pranks.”_

_“Tell me about it,” Picard had muttered.)_

Q, who of course recognized the words, flinched upright. Dark eyes bored into Picard.

“Being as I am,” he continued, “and you being as you are, at this moment in the flow of time, I declare myself to thee.”

“Picard,” Q cut in sharply.

“And may all of creation bear witness to my acceptance—”

“Don’t just _say_ that!”

“—of your tokens of courtship and yourself.”

Q shook his head. “I’ll have a talk with the child when I get back home. She should never have told you about all that. And you have _no_ idea what you just said.”

“I was under the impression that I had accepted—”

“You basically declared to all of creation that I won you over. You made a declaration of love, Picard – and creation has _listened_.”

“What does that mean?”

Q huffed a little laugh. “Probably nothing, since you’re mortal – but if you were Q, we would have a serious problem now.”

“How so?”

Q crossed his arms. He seemed a little more comfortable slipping back into a lecturing role. “Tell me, in all our past interactions, have I ever lied to you? I’m not referring to lies of omission, or general vagueness, but the outright statement of a falsehood.”

Picard did his best to think back to all his past encounters with Q. He remembered accusing Q of lying quite a few times, in the heat of another intellectual sparring match – but he did not remember having cause.

“I don’t think you did,” he said, more than a bit surprised.

“Yes, well, we generally don’t. Or at least we’re careful about it. Our words, our actions shape the nature of the universe – it comes with omnipotence. A Q taking a vow by creation can have real consequences _for_ creation, if it’s broken or facetious or, well, anything other than sincere. That’s among the reasons why we’re not using the whole courtship ritual anymore. You can’t say these things lightly. You have to _mean_ them.”

“So by saying these words, you enter a binding contract?”

Q waved a dismissive hand. “Any relationship can be terminated at any time, naturally – the Q rarely mate for life, we’d waste away from the sheer monotony of it. One can be released from any vow – there’s words for that too. But as I said, what with you being mortal, we don’t have to observe protocol here.”

Picard furrowed his brows, giving Q the look he normally used on troublesome ensigns. “And just what makes you think I want to back out so badly?”

Q was all exasperated patience. “Look, I applaud your resolve and everything, but as I just told you, what you did was—”

“What I did was declare that I loved you.”

“Yes, and that you intend to keep me around, _as_ your lover. Your mate. Your partner. Whatever term it is you prefer.”

“And why do you think I did that?”

Q threw his hands up. “Clearly you were misguided about…”

He never got to finish his sentence as Picard stepped smartly around the table, seized Q by the front of his uniform and pressed a forceful kiss to his lips.

Q stood there as a pillar of salt for about two seconds, then Picard felt a hand cupping his jaw and Q kissing him back, hungrily. He nibbled at his lower lip one second, licked into his mouth the next, all with a fervor as if he had learned kissing by manual and was now eager to try everything out at once. Q drew it all out, until Picard regrettably had to wrench himself away.

“Some of us need to breathe, you know.”

“Hmm, I’ll breathe for both of us,” Q muttered, pressing his lips to Jean-Luc’s temple. “So you kiss me to shut me up, now?”

Picard sighed. “No, Q. I’m trying to show you that the sentiment with which you set out to woo me is wholly, thoroughly returned.”

Q blinked. “That is to say, you love me.”

“After careful consideration, I just think I might.”

Q was silent for a moment.

“Is that not what you wanted to hear?”

“I can’t say I had much hope for it,” Q said with a small laugh. “I’m… not quite sure what to do.”

Another moment of silence, then he added, “The Continuum will have _kittens_ over this.”

“You mean they’ll object?”

“I don’t know. Maybe not. But it’ll certainly be… something new. You know the last time we had something new to talk about?”

“I have no earthly clue.”

“Me neither. It must’ve been centuries.” Q shook his head. “So what now?”

“What now?” Picard said, fixing Q with a crooked smile. “Well, in some situations, after a dinner date, it is customary for humans to share a cup of coffee.”

“Coffee,” Q repeated. “Is it any good?”

“I prefer tea, myself. And in this case, going to someone’s place for a cup of coffee is a euphemism, anyway.”

“Ah,” Q said, with relish. “This preludes the part where I get to rid you of this horrible oatmeal-colored sweater.”

“And I you of that offensive fake uniform.”

“Mmmh, I suppose I could do without it,” Q said, already tugging at Jean-Luc’s sweater, eager to touch the skin underneath.

Picard laughed and looped his arms around his lover – his mate, his partner, whatever term they would come to prefer – and lead the way into the bedroom.

 


End file.
